ESL

WebCAPE ESL Placement Test

One of the Most Widely Used English Tests

Over 650 institutions worldwide use WebCAPE today, making it the worldwide standard for ESL placement testing. Why have so many people trusted WebCAPE? Because English is the dominant language of the world today. English fluency has become a necessity for business & market success. And colleges, institutions & businesses all need an accurate, credible & affordable medium to evaluate English language proficiency.

WebCape’s ESL placement test adapts each question to find the student’s (or candidate’s) proper English level (see section below). Placement is not based on classes, years of experience or tutelage of English as a foreign language. Assessment is strictly of language performance ability. Whats more, English language proficiency can be assessed in just 20 minutes with WebCAPE. Immediately after the test, both you & the students can know their exam scores.

Some of the great benefits of WebCape’s unique English as a Second Language test are noted below:

An Adaptive English Proficiency Test

The basis of our placement exams is that they are completely individualized. The ESL test itself contains combinations of grammar, reading, and vocabulary questions. The method of delivery of these questions is what makes WebCAPE’s English placement test unique. The exam opens with six questions serving as ‘level checkers’. When a student finishes this portion of the test, the test has identified a rough range for the student’s ESL fluency. For the following questions, if the student answers one right, the test adapts and presents a more difficult English question (one level higher). If they answered wrong, the next question will be down one level. This process will continue until (1) the student incorrectly answers four questions at the same difficulty level, or (2) the student answers five questions at the highest difficulty level possible. At that point, the exam will end and deliver the results.

Test English Level Fluency in Just Minutes

Because there are only two ways the test ends, there is no set time to finish. However, on average, WebCAPE’s English as a Second Language test takes only 20 minutes. It is possible some may finish sooner or later – but that’s the beauty of this foreign language test: it adapts and can quickly realize how fluent a student is and where they belong.

High Accuracy for Proper ESL Placement

Accuracy of WebCAPE’s English placement exam is about 80% (see validation details for more info). It is among the most efficient methods available for predicting English foreign language proficiency. Error is uncommon, but when found is mostly conservative – students being placed just one level below where they could have been. Only 1.7% of students, according to their teachers, were placed in an English level class too high for their ability.